Only a superb recovery tackle by Gareth Barry prevented Samuel Eto'o giving Chelsea the lead after the goalkeeper, Tim Howard, passed to André Schürrle inside the Everton area. In the 45th minute there were groans from some Everton supporters as Phil Jagielka refused to launch a free-kick into the Chelsea area, and wild celebrations seconds later when Steven Naismith scored what proved to be the winning goal.

The Everton manager admitted: "I was so impressed with the patience of the crowd. I know you'll get the odd reaction because it's something new but if you want to have big results there has to be a big change, otherwise if you don't change things you're not going to have big changes. We know as a football club that if we stick together in this transitional period we're going to get the benefits. That's clear.

"At Swansea it took six or seven months to get the crowd to understand what we were trying to do. We had a period of seven months in League One where we were getting booed off but once you assimilate the concepts and the way of playing, the crowd understands it and I don't think the crowd at Swansea would accept any other way of playing now.

"At Wigan it took us a long time but allowed us to stay in the Premier League for three seasons and win an FA Cup, and I think the crowd is intelligent enough to see why we're doing certain things and will always support the players when they're trying to be brave for a reason. It's one thing to be stupid and another is being brave and trying to see the end-product."

Martínez insists he would not tell a defender to launch the ball without justification or seek a short-term fix at the expense of the team's development. "I would never do that because there is a reason behind it," he explained.

"Maybe you will win a game but you're not going to achieve your aim over the season. You're always looking at the long term. One thing is winning games but there is also knowing how to win games and that doesn't happen overnight. The football concepts and the way of playing is very clear and you have to be quite stubborn.

"It has happened at many other football clubs where you have an easy way of playing, which is short-term, trying to be solid, getting through 90 minutes, not getting out of the comfort zone as a squad and not getting better. But what's important is that over the course of the season you end up a better team than you were at the beginning.

"As a team we need to get better and it will take time and a bit of understanding, but what we've done in 12 weeks is incredible. I don't think you'd be able to do that with any other team in that short period of time."